How to Set SMART Goals for Losing Weight

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Whether intentional or not, sabotage by family and friends is seen often. Unfortunately, it can wreck you best efforts unless you’ve developed the skills to self-monitor and self-regulate your program. Learning to anticipate and identify any problems that threaten to undermine the weight loss success you have attained is crucial to self-management and implementation of changes to strategies to resolve problems as they emerge.

Very low calorie dietary plans that limit daily intake to 800 calories or less were used extensively for weight loss in the seventies and eighties, but those are not appropriate for all individuals and are usually reserved for those with medical complications. Since a temporary loss of weight control is common, the key is learning how to recognize high risk situations that can lead to overeating and a return to a more sedentary lifestyle.

Data Related to Weight Loss Should Be Recorded

As a minimum, the self-monitoring of information related to weight loss should be documented in food and exercise logs to track the balance of calories consumed and burned throughout the day. Listed below are four benefits of tracking your food, weight and daily exercise:

1) Learn More About Your Body – Self-monitoring is a strategy for healthy living that uses self-assessment of eating and exercise behaviors so you can learn more about your body to make better food choices and ensure you are losing body fat not muscle mass.

2) Builds Healthy Habits – Self-monitoring is a useful way to keep you on track with better food intake and increased physical activities as you continue to build healthy habits, so you can manage the things that have been holding you back.

3) Tracks Body Mass Index – If you want to lose weight for healthier living, it starts with self-awareness of your eating and exercise behaviors. Self-monitoring your habits can be self-assessed by tracking changes to your body mass index (BMI).

4) Easier to Focus on What Works – Self-monitoring along the same lines of food logs, exercise diaries that record physical activities should be recorded to make it easier for you to focus on what is working, so you can make knowledgeable changes to things that haven’t been.

Metabolic Research Center Has Decades of Experience

When science is applied to shedding unwanted pounds, it typically involves an increase in energy expenditure, decrease in energy intake, and the use of tracking strategies such as self-monitoring and self-regulation of key lifestyle interventions. Based on the aggregate data from studies reporting on self-monitoring of dietary intake, physical activity and weight reported ample evidence existed for a positive association between tracking and successful outcomes for weight control. Even though you may have reached your weight loss goals, current recommendations are for you to continue self-monitoring of lifestyle interventions throughout the maintenance period to ensure success.

Here at Metabolic Research Center, we have been educating clients about the dangers of following diet plans that severely restrict food diversity for decades. Visit the MRC location nearest you to learn more about self-monitoring effective lifestyle interventions.